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A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes

Compositional analyses of nucleic acids and proteins have shed light on possible origins of living cells. In this work, rigorous compositional analyses of ∼5000 plasma membrane lipid constituents of 273 species in the three life domains (archaea, eubacteria, and eukaryotes) revealed a remarkable sta...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bansal, Suneyna, Mittal, Aditya
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The American Society for Cell Biology 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4454172/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25631820
http://dx.doi.org/10.1091/mbc.E14-06-1078
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author Bansal, Suneyna
Mittal, Aditya
author_facet Bansal, Suneyna
Mittal, Aditya
author_sort Bansal, Suneyna
collection PubMed
description Compositional analyses of nucleic acids and proteins have shed light on possible origins of living cells. In this work, rigorous compositional analyses of ∼5000 plasma membrane lipid constituents of 273 species in the three life domains (archaea, eubacteria, and eukaryotes) revealed a remarkable statistical paradox, indicating symbiotic origins of eukaryotic cells involving eubacteria. For lipids common to plasma membranes of the three domains, the number of carbon atoms in eubacteria was found to be similar to that in eukaryotes. However, mutually exclusive subsets of same data show exactly the opposite—the number of carbon atoms in lipids of eukaryotes was higher than in eubacteria. This statistical paradox, called Simpson's paradox, was absent for lipids in archaea and for lipids not common to plasma membranes of the three domains. This indicates the presence of interaction(s) and/or association(s) in lipids forming plasma membranes of eubacteria and eukaryotes but not for those in archaea. Further inspection of membrane lipid structures affecting physicochemical properties of plasma membranes provides the first evidence (to our knowledge) on the symbiotic origins of eukaryotic cells based on the “third front” (i.e., lipids) in addition to the growing compositional data from nucleic acids and proteins.
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spelling pubmed-44541722015-06-16 A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes Bansal, Suneyna Mittal, Aditya Mol Biol Cell Articles Compositional analyses of nucleic acids and proteins have shed light on possible origins of living cells. In this work, rigorous compositional analyses of ∼5000 plasma membrane lipid constituents of 273 species in the three life domains (archaea, eubacteria, and eukaryotes) revealed a remarkable statistical paradox, indicating symbiotic origins of eukaryotic cells involving eubacteria. For lipids common to plasma membranes of the three domains, the number of carbon atoms in eubacteria was found to be similar to that in eukaryotes. However, mutually exclusive subsets of same data show exactly the opposite—the number of carbon atoms in lipids of eukaryotes was higher than in eubacteria. This statistical paradox, called Simpson's paradox, was absent for lipids in archaea and for lipids not common to plasma membranes of the three domains. This indicates the presence of interaction(s) and/or association(s) in lipids forming plasma membranes of eubacteria and eukaryotes but not for those in archaea. Further inspection of membrane lipid structures affecting physicochemical properties of plasma membranes provides the first evidence (to our knowledge) on the symbiotic origins of eukaryotic cells based on the “third front” (i.e., lipids) in addition to the growing compositional data from nucleic acids and proteins. The American Society for Cell Biology 2015-04-01 /pmc/articles/PMC4454172/ /pubmed/25631820 http://dx.doi.org/10.1091/mbc.E14-06-1078 Text en © 2015 Bansal and Mittal. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). Two months after publication it is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0). “ASCB®,” “The American Society for Cell Biology®,” and “Molecular Biology of the Cell®” are registered trademarks of The American Society for Cell Biology.
spellingShingle Articles
Bansal, Suneyna
Mittal, Aditya
A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes
title A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes
title_full A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes
title_fullStr A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes
title_full_unstemmed A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes
title_short A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes
title_sort statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4454172/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25631820
http://dx.doi.org/10.1091/mbc.E14-06-1078
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